Insight into customer interests and buying habits is an important tool for enabling retailers to compete in the modern marketplace. In an on-line environment, retailers are able to use clickstream data to track customer interactions to determine buying habits of customers. By analyzing clickstream data, on-line retailers can readily identify product purchases, products in which customers have shown an interest, special offers that customers have exploited in making purchases, and the like. Retailers can use this information to better tailor marketing campaigns and product offerings to suit the interests of consumers.
In a traditional brick-and-mortar retail store, insight into customer interests is harder to obtain. Brick-and-mortar retailers can analyze point-of-sale transactions after purchases are completed. However, point-of-sale transactions do not provide information regarding customer behavior before an actual purchase took place.